In the News (Thu 22 Feb 18)

The Irish Elk (Megalocerosgiganteus) is an extinct deer that lived in Europe during the Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene epochs.

It is famous for its formidable size (about two meters at the shoulders), and in particular for having the largest antlers of any known cervid (a maximum of 13 feet from tip to tip).

However, Stephen Jay Gould 's important essay on Megaloceros demonstrated that for deer in general, species with larger body size have antlers that are more than proportionately larger, a consequence of allometry, or differential growth rate of body size and antler size during development.

Of Moose, Megaloceros and Miracles(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)

Megalocerosgiganteus, the regal, extinct Irish elk, sported the most impressive headgear of any known deer.

But perhaps the most intriguing remains to emerge from the bogs are those of a long-extinct Eurasian deer, Megalocerosgiganteus, the Irish elk.

A mature Irish elk stag stood to more than seven feet at the shoulders, could weigh in excess of 1,500 pounds and carried antlers weighing up to 95 pounds and spanning as much as 168 inches from tip to tip.

Late Pleistocene remains of giant deer (MegalocerosgiganteusBlumenbach) in Scandinavia: chronology and environment

This article presents new data on the Late Pleistocene giant deer, Megalocerosgiganteus (Blumenbach), describing its distribution in time and space, geographical and sexual variation and general biology.

zinken.typepad.com /palaeo/2004/04/late_pleistocen.html (489 words)

MAMMAL FAUNA OF THE LAST INTERGLACIAL IN THE NOVOSIBIRSK CIS-OB REGION(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)

Since the year of 1978, 1925 bone remains of 17 species of large mammals have been collected there by the author.

Complete mammoth skull with tusks, skulls of wolf, bear and female Megaloceros, as well as integrated skulls of young bisons were found in the stratum which testifies to insitu character of the location.

The scientist from the Institute of Plants and Animals Ecology, Russian Academy of Sciences (Ural Branch), has made a description of the giant dear remains, found in the Ural, and has determined their age.

Giant deer (Megalocerosgiganteus) originated as a species in the preglacial epoch, lived through the glaciation period and died out about 8-9 thousand years ago after the climate had become warmer.

The remains will help to investigate how the giant dear lived and why this species disappeared.

The study of Pliocene carnivores, elephants and antelopes in collaboration with colleagues from the Institute of Speleology «E. Racovita» (Bucharest, Romania), within the framework of a joint project «Evolution of the mammal faunas from Neogene and Quaternary of Romania and the Republic of Moldova», is in progress.

were the relatively advanced forms, the Irish elk (Megaloceros) and the brush-antlered elk (Eucladoceros).

A number of related palmate-antlered forms appear in the fossil record and the Irish elk (Megaloceros) is believed to have been an advanced form which may have persisted into classical times (perhaps 500 BC).

The genus Axis of India has two members, the brightly spotted axis or chital (Axis axis) and the smaller hog deer (Axis porcinus) from which it may have arisen.

Its huge antlers were once thought to have been its downfall because they grew so large that the animals could no longer lift their heads, or got them entangled between trees!

Megaloceros fossils are found in large numbers in the peat bogs of Ireland.

www.bbc.co.uk /nature/wildfacts/factfiles/461.shtml (293 words)

UCL News(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)

But new evidence suggests it was Stone Age hunters and not the weather that killed off the majestic beast which stood more than 6ft tall at the shoulder with antlers spanning 11ft.

The evidence shows that the Irish Elk, Megalocerosgiganteus or Giant Deer, which experts believed had been wiped out by a cold spell 10,500 years ago, survived well into the modern era.

Professor Adrian Lister, who reported the findings in the journal ‘Nature’, said: “Although we can now bring the extinction date forward by 3,000 years or so, we still can’t tell what actually killed off these beasts.

A work on a Late Weichselian record of saiga (Saiga tatarica) from Denmark and its indications of glacial history and environment has been completed (K. Aaris-Sørensen, with K.S. Petersen, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, and M. Henriksen, Odense Bys Musser).

A similar work compiling the history of the extinct giant deer (Megalocerosgiganteus) in South Scandinavia has been continued (K. Aaris-Sørensen, with R. Liljegren, University of Lund) and one on the Late Glacial and Holocene history of the roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) has been completed (K. Aaris-Sørensen, with A.K. Hufthammer, University of Bergen).

A study of the dispersal and extinction pattern of the beaver (Castor fiber) in late- and post-glacial Scandinavia has been initiated (S.V. Gelskov, cand.scient.

But the species survived on Wrangel Island in the northeastern Siberian Arctic until some 4000 years ago(1), making it contemporaneous with the Bronze Age Xia Dynasty in China.

Stuart et al(2) have reported that another charismatic ice-age mammal that was thought to have become extinct 10,000 years ago -- the giant deer or Irish elk (Megalocerosgiganteus) -- survived in western Siberia to the dawn of historic times.

The finding lends weight to the idea that there is no one explanation for the so-called Pleistocene extinctions.